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It's Fat Tuesday And New Orleans Is Turning 300. Time For A Party

Rex, New Orleans' oldest parading Carnival group, is celebrating the tricentennial with 21 of its 28 floats commemorating its history — from those who lived in the area before Europeans settled it in 1718 to the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. Other floats in the Rex parade include one for St. Louis Cathedral, the descendant of a church built the year of the city's founding, and yellow fever, which killed more than 41,000 people between 1815 and 1905.